Saturday, November 14, 2009

Walking to stop.

Lucy attempts to take Abby down.

It has now become a fact of our lives: there is an inverse relationship between how mobile the girls are (walking, running, etc.) and how mobile we are with the girls (going places 'n stuff).

Jen was busy for the morning, and I was weighing my options. Considering the blustery start to the day, my options were few and grey. In a moment of pure desperation, I considered revisiting my old haunt of choice: the Mall of America! 'Get out of the house. Get some exercise. Start some Christmas shopping, ' I thought to myself. Perfect solution.

I (wisely) pictured how this would go. I put myself in that future situation. I decided it wasn't good.

I opted for a quick walk instead. It's impossible for me to take them and the dog for a walk-walk by myself; one kid will stop, the other runs, or one walks one way, the other runs the other way, or they both walk the same way but are somehow striking each other with tiny fists. As far as I can tell, it just can't be done. The stroller was pulled out.

In all fairness, I did brief Lily extensively that this would be a stroller walk and not a walk walk. This did nothing to stem the enormous meltdown she had when I tried to put her in. 'Twas a first rate hullabaloo. Abby handled it pretty well, but Lily had her heart set on walking herself.

I had to bring her inside and tell her that we weren't going; this sent her through the roof. After she'd calmed down a bit (I should state that, this entire time, the dog is wandering our block, unleashed, unwatched), I went back out to try again. Same result. This time, though, the mailman showed up (he didn't just show up...this freaking guy tiptoed up on me like a ninja and said, "Hi!" from about 4 inches behind my ear. I swear, I about jumped out of my underwear, it scared the living hell out of me), and the delivery of our mail by this mysterious stranger proved to be the necessary distraction for Lils. She watched him walk to another two houses while I got her good and strapped in, and she was - no surprise here - fine for the entire walk.

This drama would have certainly played out in the MOA if I'd decided to do that trip solo, there is no doubt.

But this post has a happy lining, capitalistically speaking. We did end up going to the mall later, after Jen came home. It was a fine, well choreographed trip, and it was only on the merits of having both of us there that it was so.

Finally, I should mention that Jen and I closed the day out by racing matchbox cars around the floor late tonight. Quality Saturday night.

Day two hundred and eighty one.

Lily straining her brain.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Apples, as is turns out, are terrible for your health.

Shh.. hunting wabbits.

My mind is a sieve. I had about 8 anecdotes of blogworthy material rattling around my head tonight, and I think it's whittled itself down to just a few. During moments such as these, I can't imagine not having this blog, trying to relate to the girls a decade from now memories of their toddlery days.

My favorite of the night was Lily's 30 minute session of "put the stuffed bear to bed". Her treating objects as people and babies is a new thing, and it's maddeningly cute to watch. It took me a bit to figure out what she was doing at first: she kept laying the bear on the bench, then putting the blanket over it. After a few iterations of that, I asked her if she was putting the bear to bed. Look at the picture above to see the reaction I got. "Shhhhh!" Awesome.

Anytime our kids are proponents of some measure of silence is something to be celebrated. Quietly.

I kept shooshing her back, encouraging her that we should be quiet for the bear to sleep. I was curious if she really understood the concept of a "shoosh", so I decided to hang back for a while. After a couple minutes without interaction from her, I started clapping loudly to the music on the radio. She immediately turned around and gave me the shooshing of a lifetime. Yeah, I think she gets it.

Not long after this, Abby made her way over to that area and took notice of the blanket Lily was holding. I should preface this story with the following: Abby has become a connoisseur of all things soft. If she comes across something high on the soft and fluffy factor, she will now grab it and unceremoniously tackle it. Then she spends a couple minutes rubbing her face on it, smiling and being a goofball. So tonight she made a target of the blanket in Lily's possession. While she grabbed one end and took it to the floor and laid upon it quite happily, Lily became pointedly unhappy.

"Noooo! Miiine!" came the protest.

Lily tried to pull it away and only ended up dragging Abby a couple inches across the floor. That's really all there is to the story, but it was a pretty funny visual, Abby happy as a clam spread all over the blanket, Lily yanking furiously on it. I did my best to diffuse the situation, but I was laughing heartily. Stiffling laughs at the appropriate times seems to be a hard part of parenting, mostly because the situations that bring the most humor are invariably the same ones that are making the kids infinitely annoyed. For example: I love to pinch Lily when she is super annoyed at me and keeps whining, "Noooo!" every time I get my hand near her. It's irrisistable. Is this what it's like to have a little sibling? The pure addiction of watching them be mad at you?

Just remembered another story from the night. After dinner, the girls saw the fruit bowl and became interested. I gave Lily an apple for her to explore. She kinda halfheartedly tried to bite it, and I watched, and it was all pretty benign. I stopped watching, and a couple minutes later she pulled something out of her mouth and tried to give it to me. Usually this ends up being a hair or piece of lint or spent nuclear fuel rod; nothing major. This time she gave me the apple stem, all 1.5 jagged, chokable inches of it. I hadn't even thought that the thing could be dangerous, but that stem is wicked hard and super pointy. If she'd accidentally swallowed it, it'd be ugly. Yay for my parenting!

Day two hundred and eighty.

Squinty McPony

Putting the bear to bed, take 84.

Shiny blonde dancer.
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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Baff Time.

Punk.

Tonight was bath night. Let's look at a typical bath for these 21 month old yahoos:

6:15 - The bath is ready. Water temp is upper 90's. Squirty toys and gay rubber ducky drag queen are in the water. Towels are laid out. Conditions are perfect.

6:17 - We stand over the girls in their high chairs, Jen over Lily and I over Abby. "Do you want me to take Lily?" I ask, which is a throw-yourself-on-the-grenade offering; we both know Lily is the hard one. Jen says no, but thanks.

6:18 - We ask the girls if they want to take a bath. Lily screams, "No!", and begins to freak out. Jen now takes me up on my offer, and we swap kids.

6:20 - Abby goes easily. Lily turns to jelly for the walk up the stairs, whimpering and willing herself to slip through my hands. Once she sees the bath, though, she's on board. I strip her down, but she refuses to go in right away. First she has to throw all the bath toys in. There are roughly 20 bath toys, half of which I hide behind the toilet when she's not looking in order to speed things up.

6:22 - Lily's finally in the bath, as are every bath toy we own, making it near impossible to see the water. The water is soapy, though; I know that because Jen has already had the time to wash and rinse Abby's hair. This becomes relevant when Lily starts scooping water up with a cup and drinking it. "Hrmm," I say. I should stop this. I don't.

6:23 - After reading the shampoo bottle, I find that there seems to be no danger for "in case of ingestion".

6:25 - I'm not sure what prompted it, but the girls lean in and give each other a kiss. It's got to be one of the top 5 cutest things they do now. This kiss then gets repeated about 6 times.

6:27 - A splashing contest ensues. Tonight's was easily the most spirited I've ever been witness to; water was sloshing over the sides of the tub, and we were fairly wet by the end. I tried to hold a towel in front of my face to mitigate the wetness, but Lily kept pulling it down, saying, "Noooo!"

6:32 - Somewhere during all this, I managed to get Lily's head good and soapy. She immediately runs her hands through her hair, then rubs her eyes. It's like she can't possibly go any more directly to the most dangerous course of action possible. I wipe her eyes down.

6:34 - I lay Lily down to rinse her hair. She screams bloody murder. For some reason, she has hated being horizontal in the bath for a few months now. We suspect a possible ear infection, since she seems to grab at her ears when we do it. Because she's miserable, I keep it quick, meaning when I'm finished there's still 91% of the soap still in her hair. Jen and I pour water over her head and get it off.

6:35 - Jen has asked Abby multiple times if she wants to get out, but she's said, "No" every time; she's having too much fun with the splashing contest. At this point, Lily tries to serve Abby a cup full of bathwater; Abby chokes on it. She looks panicked. Jen asks, "Are you all done now?" and Abby turns, reaching towards her faster than I've ever seen.

6:37 - Lily still refuses to be done. I sneakily pull the plug on the tub. When she finally realizes that the water is going away, she starts moving the toys around, thinking she can find more water. Cute. Sad.

6:38 - We're out! And clean (mostly)! Then it's off to the post-bath, which can fill another post entirely.

Day two hundred and seventy nine.

ps. I failed to mention yesterday that Jen had the girls for most of the night by herself, and didn't really get any due credit in the post. I regret the omission. Jen is the cat's meow.

pps. Tonight's pictures feature ponytails! Generally, the girls' hair is a hair-scrunchy-non-grata sort of realm. Today, Abby was pretty much okay with it, and even Lily left them in for a few minutes.

Punk's ponytail.

Ne'er-do-well.

Gadabouts.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

I'll never drive by day care again.

A couple of recycled photos from a weekend walk in the park. This is a self portrait. Some long, November shadows, even around midday.

Colors are nice.

This morning, the girls and I had a lovely drive to day care. We discussed what birds say ("Cackaaw!"). We sang some songs, each one ending with a chorus of, "Yaaay!"s. We discussed who Bonnie is, and why she lies over the ocean.

As our blue Subaru crept up on our destination, I saw that there were no parking spots out front. "Curses!" I yelled, shaking my fist towards the heavens. But then I saw Joe, another parent, coming out of the building making for his car. As there's no good place to sit and wait for a spot, I opted to drive around the block and get Joe's spot once he'd gone.

I wasn't 4 feet past day care when Lily erupted in a maniacal, wailful cry. I turned around in time to see her looking over at the day care building as we passed it. There's no mistaking the fact that she was upset because she thought we weren't going in.

Somebody tell me: should this make me very happy, because they obviously love day care, or very sad because she'd rather be going to day care than spend any more time with me?

Day two hundred and seventy eight.

I think she's doing the sprinkler dance here.

Must. Reach. Camera.
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Will photo hard-to-reach parts of your aircraft for food.

This self portrait does not do justice to the utter crampedness of the Boeing 767 electronics bay. My eagerness to go trampsing around the country on photoshoots for Aerosim is going to eventually land me face-down in the chiropractor's chair.

After I dropped the girls off at day care today, I kinda blacked out for a bit and found myself in Louisville, KY.

'Huh,' I thought. 'That's curious.'

Determined to make the most of a very strange situation, I decided to make a few calls and see if I could maybe take some pictures of UPS's newest B767. I'm not sure what normal people do in Louisville, but this course of action struck me as the most natural.

After settling the deal, I was picked up by Scott, an affable sim engineer who sprung for lunch before I had the chance to impress upon him how unimportant I am at my company.

While I've found myself wandering the UPS Philadelphia facility at some odd hours of the night, I'd never been to their main Louisville hub. It's pretty staggering. Not quite as large as I think I thought it might be, but grand nonetheless.

The rest of the photoshoot went well. There is a great deal of added stress involved when shooting the delicate areas of a brand new aircraft worth roughly $150 clams. I was acutely aware that, during my fidgeting to get into a tight spot for the HF radios, I definitely probably kicked something with my foot. It was probably nothing. Just a spacer or baffle or vent line. Still, I'll be glad when the newspaper comes tomorrow and there's no story of a 767 crash enroute to Stuttgart.

My flight back was supposed to be at 7:30, connecting through Detroit. I got done early, and made it to the airport in time for the 4:50 direct to MSP. I went to the ticket counter and told the nice lady of my wishes to go home early and not languish in the SDF airport. She walked me to a kiosk and told me to use that for changes to my itinerary. That was a red flag. When the 4:50 flight didn't come up, she said, "Oh. Yeah. Well, it must be sold out. You'll have to stay on your original flight." Uh................huh. Much as I respected her decision, I went through security and off to the gate, where I was promptly given a seat assignment for the half-full (!) flight at 4:50. Love them or hate them, you have to love the airlines.

I made it home in time to see the girls. They had absolutely zero reaction when I walked in the door. I might as well have been a walking wet blanket. Still, they're cute, so they get a pass.

Day two hundred and seventy seven.

Plopped into the middle of UPS's sprawling, immense sea of concrete and sorting facilities lies this little one acre plot of overgrown grass.
"Native American burial ground. By law, we're not allowed to build anything on it," said my guide.
Interesting stuff.
It's hard to tell by the photo, but there were indeed some barrowy-like earthen mounds.
So what's more interesting: the scope of the sorting facility, which moves boxes from plane to plane with almost no human intervention, or the tiny parcel of land sacred to Native Americans where nobody is allowed to go?

Of the many panels snuggled together in the belly o' the beast, I liked the yaw damper module the most. It had bangley bling type things hanging off it - a major plus.
I love when people call this a 'yaw dampener'. You should never, ever dampen yaw; it could shrink.

Monday, November 9, 2009

This is a post.

A box of shoes makes Abs happy.

Another Monday class, another family member comes to help me with the girls. This time, Papa (aka my Dad) came over for the long haul. I don't think it's a coincidence that the girly girls were in stupendous moods; if it were only me tonight, they might have had their way with me, leaving me a flinching, snivelling wreck curled into the fetal position in the corner. Having a grandparent around seems to have a mollifying effect on them.

For example, Papa was able to comb Lily's hair for around 1o minutes. I can't comb Lily's hair for 3 seconds, but somehow she enjoyed his version. Abby tended to be a little shy and clingy, but she did enjoy giving kisses to the sheep that he was using as a puppet.

Tomorrow, Jen gets her turn at solo parenting for the week, as I'm off to Louisville for a work-related photoshoot.

Day two hundred and seventy six.

Lily getting the makeover.

Abby, busted looking at my flash.

The comb was turned on Papa in time.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

A bit of a Lily day.

Cute Mom X-ing

I want to preface this post by saying that it's mostly about Lily achievements, and I feel kinda bad about that. To be honest, Abby is, as she is most days, a total peach. She's hilarious and cute and, on average, does about 29 things an hour that make me laugh. There, I should feel better about that.

Lily, however, had the honor of noticing her shadow for the first time today. I'm not sure how momentous an occasion this really is, but it definitely felt blog worthy. We were on a walk around the block, and while she was looking at a leaf she was clutching in her paw, she suddenly took notice of the Lily-shaped dark spot on the pavement. Her gut reaction: try to wave at it. (awww... always the friendly monkey. She waved at two total strangers during our walk as well). When she was done waving, she tried to jump on it, which is curiously akin to something flirting with violence, strikingly similar to the prehistoric man part of "2001: A Space Odyssey".

The second Lily achievement of the day came during dinner at my Dad's house. Jen had set up a booster seat in a folding chair in anticipation of dinner. This chair is a normal height, maybe 22 inches off the ground. Plus the booster seat, so 25 inches or so. After Jen had set it up, our attentions were commandeered to other things. A few minutes later, Jen came to realize that Lily was completely in the seat, with the table snapped in place. We questioned the family - nobody copped to having put her in it (I think I can trust them). Somehow, and I have to say I can't really imagine that she could have done it, she managed to climb up into the chair and pull the table into place AND snap it down. We are flabbergasted.

Lastly, Lily tonight walked into the vicinity of the bathroom and said, "Poopy!?" I should say that we have been negligent and not even broached the topic of potty training yet, though it is looming on our lengthening to-do list. I dove to her side and asked, "Do you need to go potty?"

"Yeah!" she replied.

"Okay!" I scooped her up, took off the necessary garb, and put her on the toilet. She seemed, on some strange level, to understand what was happening and why she was there. I kept asking her if she had to poop, and her response never wavered: "Yah!" She even peeped down into the watery bowl, checking to see if anything was happening. She liked being there. So much so that my arms started to burn with the effort of keeping her from plunging into the toilet. Nothing material ever came of it, but it seemed like a good sign that she actively sought out the experience of it. Plus, she grabbed some toilet paper and (needlessly) wiped herself - more positive.

Day two hundred and seventy five.

Both kids have rediscovered the joy of the bouncy chair, even though they make the thing bend all the way to the ground. Here, Abby tries to hypnotize the chair to do her bidding.

Here it is, the very moment of Lily discovering her shadowy doppelganger.

I'm not sure how or why this happened, but a picture of their cousin Oliver at rest is an amazing catch.